By CHRIS COOK
LongwoodLancers.com

In the Longwood women's soccer team room, there is a quote on the wall from the late hall of fame women's basketball coach Pat Summit.
 
Stenciled in white letters on a Longwood blue backdrop, Summit's words read, "Here's how I'm going to beat you: I'm going to outwork you. That's it. That's all there is to it."
 
If that quote represents what Longwood women's soccer is all about, then senior midfielder Amanda Spencer personifies it.
 
Spencer is nearing the end of an historic career in Farmville in which she has outworked, outhustled and outplayed some of the best players in college soccer since the moment she stepped on campus. This season she became the first in program history to earn four All-Big South Team honors and enters Friday's Big South quarterfinal matchup at No. 4 seed Gardner-Webb with 26 career goals, the third most in school history.
 
But for all the accolades Spencer has earned – and there are many, including 2013 Big South Freshman of the Year and two All-Big South first team awards – what is most overlooked is that she has done it all as one of the smallest players on the field.
 
At just 5-foot-3 Spencer is a David among Goliaths, regularly outsized by her Division I counterparts but never overmatched. She plays the game with Longwood's trademark reckless abandon, which often manifests itself in physical battles for the ball, some of which Spencer loses but many of which she wins. But no matter how many times the Gibsonia, Pa., native hits the ground, she never stays down.
 
"I just remember recruiting Amanda, you saw the smallest player on the field being one of the feistiest and most competitive and having the biggest impact," Dyer said. "She played with some really good players on her club team that went on to West Virginia and Penn State, but she jumped out at us. This small little package was making the most noise out there. She just grabbed our attention."
 
Spencer's relentless physicality is constant from whistle to whistle, the embodiment of the hard-nosed mentality that has made Longwood women's soccer one of the school's most successful Division I programs and one of the Big South's most feared.
 
Since Spencer came to campus in 2013, the Lancers are 20-14-5 in Big South play with three top-five league finishes under their belt, including this year's fifth-place result. Spencer has been there for every one of those, starting 70 of the 75 games she's been a part of as a Lancer. She plays without a position, acting as a do-it-all chess piece that Dyer can place anywhere on the field.
 
"First and foremost, she's a talent," Dyer said. "You can't do the things she's done without that. She has all the technique, quickness, pace and athleticism. She's tactically aware. But I think what wraps all that together and makes her special is she's so driven. Mentally, she has that edge. She hates to lose, and she shows it in how she trains and competes. That allows all those attributes to surface for her."
 
To watch Spencer play is a demonstration in toughness. She invites contact and routinely hurls her 5-3 frame at players nearly a foot taller than her. She has four career yellow cards to show for it, including two she has earned this year. Those warnings, and the bumps and bruises, however, are a small tradeoff for the all-out manner in which she plays the game.
 
"It's just about letting them know, ok, you can do that, but just wait because I'll make sure you remember you knocked me down," Spencer said. "Whether I'm beating you to the ball next or scoring or just making a play against whoever it is after that, I'm not going to let them get the final say."
 
And while that all-out style of play may at times land her on the business end of the referee's whistle or pushing herself back up off the ground, it's what has driven her to become on the greatest players Dyer has ever coached.
 
"We've had a ton of good players, but she's been one of those program-changers and program-builders," he said. "That's based on everything, her talent, versatility, drive, her influence on the program. She's special. We're going to miss her, for sure."
 
Dyer says it may be a long time before another Amanda Spencer wears the blue and white. Over the past four seasons, Longwood is 14-2-3 all-time in games Spencer scores, including her eight game-winning goals. She has been Longwood's leading goal-scorer every year, and 2016 is no exception. Her four goals this year are tied for the team lead, and three of them have come in Big South play.
 
But for all her numbers, what makes Spencer, Spencer, has more to do with her drive than any one thing she can do with a soccer ball.
 
"She's tough. That's that Steel Town in her," Dyer said. "She's in the thick of it, too. She's always throwing herself into those physical situations, and being smaller, she gets knocked around a little bit, but she never stays down. She wants to get back up and come right back at you. She's a stick of dynamite. She's not gonna tolerate or not respond to anything that happens out there."
 
Spencer's relentlessness has proven contagious this year after Longwood was knocked down plenty early in the season. Stumbling to a 2-6 start against a daunting non-conference schedule, the Lancers took a cue from their senior captain, picked themselves up off the ground and came back with a vengeance.
 
Since a narrow 1-0 loss against ACC powerhouse Virginia Tech that featured what Dyer called one of the best defensive performances in program history, Longwood has embarked on a second-half surge. The Spencer-led Lancers have rallied to a 6-3-1 record since that game, finishing their home schedule in Farmville undefeated and unscored upon by their five Big South opponents.
 
The strong finished earned Longwood the No. 5 seed in the Big South Tournament and a quarterfinal date against a Gardner-Webb, whom the Lancers demolished 5-0 on Sept. 24.
 
Spencer, uncharacteristically, didn't score any of those five goals last time out against the Runnin' Bulldogs, but she didn't need to. Now that the fire that drives her has had four years to spread throughout Longwood's program, every player on the field exudes some form of Spencer's trademark toughness.
 
"What she's done on the field, the accolades she's achieved and earned over the years…simply put, she's the face of the program," Dyer said. "This is her team."
 
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